


The Lover’s Call

by morrezela



Category: Supernatural RPF, The Last Unicorn - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Unicorns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen was a human prince who fell in love with a unicorn trapped in the form of a human male. Overcoming the obstacles to be together seemed impossible, but Jensen’s lonely heartache meant that he had to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lover’s Call

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, so not mine. The people mentioned in here? I wish them all the best in their personal and professional lives and hope that they make many, many more movies and TV Shows. May I never set eyes on either of them, and may they continue in their marital bliss.
> 
> This? Ain’t a drop of it that is real.
> 
> Warnings: Fantasy style violence mentioned, interspecies love story, magic
> 
> A/N: This was written for the 2013 round of spn_cinema. The movie I chose was The Last Unicorn.
> 
> Beta graciously provided by cappy712. All mistakes you find are my own

The first moment that Jensen espied Lord Jared, he knew him to be nothing short of wondrous. There had been many men and women in his father’s court over the years. All manner of people from faraway lands had come to seek the riches of King Julian, but none had ever succeeded. His father eventually grew tired of them all.

His father had grown tired of him after a time. Jensen supposed he was only around because he had become a habit, or perhaps some small part of his father still wished to leave a legacy behind him. But Jensen would wager his coins that his father’s motivation rested in the fact that the red bull would need a keeper when the king passed.

Still, for all that his life was lonesome, Jensen was not mistreated. He knew well the fate that he had escaped in his life. King Julian had plucked him up from the dirty streets that Jensen had been abandoned in. He had been taken from being swaddled in dirty, wet rags to the comfort of a castle. No matter how dreary his home was, it was far better than his original fate.

Lord Jared was not like those he traveled with. The magician, DJ, was passable at best even though he was amusing. Felicia’s fiery hair matched her temper, but her underlying sweetness softened her sometimes blunt words. Plus, her food was as excellent as any Jensen had ever tasted. While his father had grown weary of fine cuisine over the years, Jensen was ever grateful for the flavor that the three travelers brought to his life.

King Julian’s obsessive nature was something that had often concerned Jensen. His father’s ability to fixate so decidedly on things was worrisome. Oft had he tried to speak to his father about how it was robbing him of his joy, but once he met Lord Jared, Jensen thought he might understand his father better.

Lord Jared was handsome. To be certain he was tall and comely, the thick wave of his hair falling about his shoulders begged a man’s fingers to touch it. Jensen was besotted and aggrieved. For no matter how hard he tried to win but a smile from the man, Lord Jared cared only for the sea.

Jensen wondered if perhaps he was cursed. His father and Lord Jared both preferred the dark waters crashing upon the beach to him. Was it possible to be jealous of the briny deep? How could two people have such fondness for the water?

“He looked at me as if I had slaughtered the bunny coop,” Jensen complained to Felicia as she worked her magic on the contents of the kitchen. “Have you any idea how many ‘undefeatable’ foes I have slain in his name with his banner upon my lance? Yet he will not even give me a kind word.”

Felicia gave him a consoling smile. “Perhaps Jared is not to be won by such methods,” she observed.

“Then how? Please, Felicia, I only want a moment of his notice. If he would but speak to me… You know him. Perhaps you could put in a good word for me?”

“I am uncertain that would be wise.” The hesitation in her voice was nothing new. Despite how friendly both she and DJ were, neither of them would speak much on the subject of Jared.

He felt as if the entire castle knew a secret to which he was not privy. His father had never been one to share secrets, and Jensen had learned not to ask. But his yearning for Jared grew with each passing day, though he knew not why. Infatuation was supposed to go away. The touch of it would burn bright for a time, but then reality would come shining through.

“Please, Felicia, I know not what else to do,” he begged.

The resolve in her eyes melted. “I will speak to him.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You are a terrible poet,” were the first words that Lord Jared spoke to him. Jensen tried not to be elated with those words for it would make him truly pathetic to rejoice at such a thing. He was unsuccessful.

“Perhaps it is your beauty that has my tongue tied, and I am a superb poet,” Jensen returned, failing to hide the depth of his smile.

“You flatter me,” Jared said, ducking his head in that way he sometimes did.

“I would flatter you in a thousand tongues if I but knew them. Unfortunately, my education has not taken me far from my father’s castle,” Jensen admitted. He cursed himself a moment later when his words seemed to remind Jared that there was a body of water to be paying attention to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Your eyes remind me of the forest,” Jared said one night after supper. Jensen’s father had been in a foul mood indeed, seemingly irritated at the sight of Jared speaking and even laughing. Jensen half wondered if perhaps his father fancied Jared for himself.

That scenario would be unfortunate. King Julian had taken lovers in his time, but never had his eye fallen on those that Jensen sought to woo. Instead he preferred to chase the exotic an unusual until at last it seemed he had courted even the strangest of beings, leaving him nobody else to seek love with.

Then again, Jensen knew not why he felt so strongly about Jared himself. He only knew that Jared’s soft suggestion that Jensen leave his title when speaking had thrilled him to now end.

“My eyes are green,” Jensen responded to Jared’s compliment. “So are forests, at least the ones that are farther away from the castle.”

His answer seemed to trouble Jared, but the other man shook his head, encroaching distance clearing from his eyes. “I lose myself, often,” he confessed softly, “but when you are near me, I am not afraid of this loss.”

Perhaps to another man, the words would be discouraging. But Jensen had been raised by a man of distant affections and deep hurts. He did not fear his lover being different or odd. So long as there was affection, he would be content.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Contentment was not what Fate meant to give Jensen. Irony was on his platter. It was for Jared that he had become a hero. He had striven all those long months to perform acts of valor to win his affections. Perhaps Jensen had not been a hero when he first laid eyes upon Lord Jared, but he was one now.

A hero would not let King Julian’s treachery continue. A hero could not allow the unicorns to stay trapped in the seas for ages simply because his heart did not wish to be parted from the object of its affections. Jared could not stay human.

It was heartbreaking to hear his lover’s pleas. Long had he hoped to learn of Jared’s deep regard, and it was most cruel that he was granted it when he knew that he could not keep it.

“I am no unicorn,” Jared was saying, ignoring DJ’s protests otherwise. “Jensen, please. I want to grow old with you, marry you.”

“This is foolishness,” DJ said. “Jensen, you are a hero. If he doesn’t change back, he will grow old and die. His kind will be trapped in the sea for ages.”

“No,” Jared denied. “My kind is your kind. Jensen, don’t let him change me back.”

But that was not a choice that Jensen could make – no matter how ill advised his decision would have been. The red bull came, and DJ undid his magics, turning Jared in all his magnificence back into a creature of even more grandeur. The change did not unbind Jensen’s heart from the love that it felt, nor did it erase the nobility that his quest for love had given him.

The red bull killed Jensen. Jared, or so DJ told Jensen, brought him back to life. Jensen’s death had inspired the unicorn to fight back, to conquer the foe that had tracked down and captured all of the rest of his kind. After the unicorns were freed from their watery prison, Jared had taken a moment to remember the man who had loved him.

The touch of his horn had brought breath back into Jensen’s lungs, but the unicorn did not linger to say his farewells.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps it was foolish of Jensen to still pine for Jared after five long years, but he did. Once touched a man’s heart could not be untouched. Duty might weigh heavy on his shoulders. Honor might shackle his feet to the castle that his people had built for him, but no man or woman could steal away his love.

On the gates, unicorns were engraved. Jensen ordered it to be so, that all would remember their beauty and the horrors that his father had inflicted upon them. He denied sentimentality in the gesture save all but DJ the magician and Felicia Day – the woman who had enabled his all too brief love affair with a unicorn.

Of DJ, Jensen knew not whether to curse or praise the man. It was he who had brought Jared into his life. That much the other man had finally told Jensen. He and Felicia both had sat with him and told the long story of Jared’s journey to King Julian’s castle.

Jared - that perfect, shining man who had stolen Jensen’s heart. That one special person in the whole world to have made Jensen want to do anything, perform any feat just to be with him.

Even though years had passed, Jensen sometimes still wondered if he was as ill as his adoptive father before him. Perhaps his heart had only been so touched because of what Jared had been on the inside. Perhaps the love Jensen felt had never been truly returned. Jared, after all, had not bid Jensen so much as goodbye before leaving him. He was a unicorn – not meant to love as men did.

Such thoughts would plague Jensen in the night. He would stare down at the beach and wonder if it was only pity that had caused Jared to revive his life on that wet sand. He would gaze at the red blotch in the water and think of the red bull, trapped in its waves and question if was any better than the creature, wanting to chase after Jared to make him his own.

There was a part of Jensen that wished to live only in his memories, but that was as dangerous as tangling with a harpy while naked. Good memories would always fade into bad. Impossibly soft, brown hair and hazel eyes would always morph into a glossy white mane and orbs that reflected only the forest.

Jensen’s mind would always betray him, remind him that he had given his heart away to an immortal being. Jared was no man that he could have. Even with that knowledge, Jensen’s heart could not let him go.

When he had awoken from his death, he had tried to follow after Jared. Even as shaken as he was by the deception that had been Jared’s humanity, he could not stop loving the unicorn. He understood why DJ and Felicia and Jared and lied and deceived their way into Jensen’s father’s court. Who has he to hold that against them? Jensen could observe with his own eyes the changes to the forests once the unicorns were freed. He could hear the stories of prosperity and the grumblings of hunters having to work to catch their prey as game took refuge in a unicorn’s glade.

It had been DJ who had stopped him from pursuing Jared. The magician had pointed to all the people who would not depend on their prince – their king. Though King Julian had been a poor servant to his people, Jensen did not have to follow into his father’s footsteps. The elder man’s castle had crumbled under the weight of decay and greed, taking him with it. But Jensen need not repeat the man’s mistakes.

It had also been DJ who had reminded Jensen that he was a human attempting to chase after a unicorn. They were different so different and what made Jensen think that he could catch Jared?

Jensen still could not say if he appreciated DJ’s candor or hated the man for it. While his words were true, they could not quell the ache that Jensen felt each and every time he thought of how he had not followed after his unicorn. Should he not have tried even though he was doomed to fail?

Still, as much as Jensen might hate the fact that the magician had convinced him to stay in the kingdom that his father had built, DJ was one of the first friends that Jensen had ever made. Never would he bar him or Felicia from accessing the comforts of his castle’s halls when they were travelling through.

“The skies have been dreadfully wet this year,” DJ opined as he wrung his wizard’s hat out by the fireplace.

Beside him, Felicia rolled her eyes, but gave an indulgent smile. Somehow she always seemed younger when she came to visit. Years of hard life appeared to melt away as she spent time in DJ’s company. Jensen could never quell his envy of her. She had been granted her magical lover – bumbling though he still was.

“I like the rain,” Jensen said, merely to see DJ stumble and stammer over his response.

Felicia sighed and swatted Jensen’s arm. “Kingship has not improved your sense of humor.”

“I disagree. I recall being very serious and steadfast before,” Jensen argued as lightly as he could. Nobody in the room would have the bad grace to mention the one person who had been the object of his most fervent and dedicated desires.

“Alas,” he continued, “shining knighthood fades after a few years. The people prefer their kings to be jolly where their princes are valiant. I fear they wish to fatten me like a pig so that I may never ride a horse again.”

“Well, I am certain that your blade will work for several years to come. Never fear, you Highness,” Dj said with a sketched bow.

Jensen shrugged and plastered a smile on his face. “What brings you to my kingdom? Nothing too terrible, I assume?”

“There were rumors of trapped kitsune kits being sold as pets up north,” DJ explained. “Thankfully, it was merely a rumor.

“Thankfully,” Jensen echoed.

“We thought we would stop by to see how you were doing,” Felicia added.

“Well, I do have a magical creature trapped away against its will, but I trust that we are all comfortable with that decision still? I have yet to find a blade to slay him with,” Jensen said, his eyes darting out to the reddened waters.

“There were rumors that you were to be wed,” DJ brought up the subject with an air of nervousness.

“There are always rumors, aren’t there?” Jensen mused with a soft smile. “I do not blame my people for it. Much of their hope was placed in me, and they have not lost sight of that hope, however foolish it was.”

“It was not misplaced,” Felicia said. “You did a great…”

“I did nothing!” Jensen interrupted her sternly.

The explosion would have subdued most men and women in Jensen’s kingdom, but Felicia had lived a rough life. A man barking at her would no more cow her than a feather floating in the wind.

“You gave him courage,” she said.

“Not courage,” Jensen countered. “I have slain dragons and hydras – courage cannot be gifted.”

“Inspiration then,” she countered. “You helped him to find his heart.”

“At the expense of my own,” Jensen snapped, ache of loneliness welling inside of him again, never leaving him be. He did not know how something could bring him such joy and such sorrow, but it did.

“Bah,” DJ scoffed, “you would not take that heart back if he walked in here and offered it to you.”

A laugh bubbled on Jensen’s lips. “No,” he admitted, “I would not. Though I might ask when you became quite so bold.”

“When I started wandering the world with her,” DJ answered pointing a long finger in Felicia’s direction.

“Do not blame me for his boldness, only his decreasing foolishness,” Felicia denied, shaking her head.

DJ clasped his hands over his heart, mocking being wounded, and Jensen felt a second laugh come up his throat.

“Come, the cook should have supper near ready. While not as fine a meal as yours, dear Felicia, I dare say she is quite competent at it.”

It was not until after supper that Jensen’s thoughts returned to Jared. “Do you think that he remembers me?” he asked over his cup of mead.

“Of course he does,” DJ said. “He is immortal, not forgetful.”

“Shush you,” Felicia ordered. “That was not what he was asking.”

“Oh. OH!” DJ exclaimed as realization dawned. “He did love you. Regret isn’t just yours to bear.”

“Did,” Jensen tasted the word on his tongue. “Do you suppose he still does? Or does being not human fade those feelings like curtains handing too long in the sun?”

“Love changes over time, but it doesn’t fade away,” Felicia answered him.

“I think I may agree with you, and I regret that I do,” Jensen mused.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Of all the magicians in the lands, DJ was the most famous. For that reason along, Jensen gave the man special guards whenever he visited. It simply would not do to have a man so admired injured by zealous admirers. But DJ was also a threat to his own health. Possessing both real magic and true clumsiness was a cursed combination - one that lead to an extended stay when DJ summoned a gorgon by accident because he tripped over his own feet while chanting.

The summoned creature was Jensen’s first battle since the red bull had been banished. For a split second, he considered letting the creature take him as the bull had. Then he would no longer have to live alone, live only for the comfort and joy of others with no succor for himself. But Jensen was a hero, a knight and a king. His honor drove his sword true, and there was a feast instead of a funeral.

Yet Jensen’s slip did not go unnoticed. Felicia waited until he was in his cups before approaching him, but his inebriation didn’t lessen the harshness of her stare.

“Jared would not want that,” she said without preamble. Jensen did not bother feigning ignorance as to what she was referring.

“Not everything is about what Jared wants. He is immortal, not infallible. It is my heart that bleeds.”

“He cannot be with you,” she reminded him.

“Blame is not what I seek. His place in this world is fixed. Knowing this is not helpful to me.”

“Then what is it that you seek? What would make this better for you?” Felicia asked, exasperation etched into the lines of her face.

“The impossible,” Jensen answered her.

~~~~~~~~~~

Rare were the times that Jensen left his kingdom. King Julian had conquered many lands in his attempts to find happiness. The result was that Jensen ruled over a vast domain. Leaving its boarders was an effort in time if nothing else.

Still, good diplomacy could not forever rely on tales of Jensen’s heroism and his part in returning unicorns to the world. Attending a hunt in another kingdom was a simple enough thing. The fair maidens flirting with Jensen over the feast table did little to lift his spirits, but the mead was better in the southern countries. He could enjoy that bit of hospitality without any falsity on his part.

It was pure luck that he overheard two hunters gossiping about a forest where they could never seem to catch game. It was pure ingenuity that Jensen employed to slip past his escort of squires and knights to go in search of this forest. There was the largest of chances that the hunters were just poor aims or the woods merely over hunted.

But Jensen chose to pursue the slimmer chance. It could well be a unicorn’s glade. Even that would be a miracle. He did not hold out hope that it would be Jared’s forest. His was not strong enough for that.

Slipping away from his servants and council was difficult, but not nearly as problematic as it would have been had Felicia and DJ been there. Jensen’s subjects ascribed purity to his love of a unicorn that wasn’t there. They knew not the depths of passion that had grown in him during those months.

The magician and his love knew the need in him. They would have purposed his intent straight away. They would have stopped him.

Jensen found his way to the forest easily. Though he might never have known of its existence had it not been of man’s mouth, he had no need of man’s words to determine that the place was enchanted. The woods felt brighter, calmer. Its winds were soft, not biting. The entire place made him feel as if Jared was right next to him.

“It is the rescuer! The rescuer of the unicorns!”

Jensen knew not whence the words came, but he shook his head in denial anyway. “Nay, I am not he. Though hero I may be, I am not he who defeated the red bull.”

“Lies made by the human tongue. I’ll not believe them, not a one,” the voice answers merrily.

Jensen spun around in a circle, searching for the voice that teased him. “Who are you,” he demanded.

A butterfly landed on his hand. “My father’s father’s father’s father was butterfly, and so then, am I.”

The knowledge of a talking butterfly should not have shocked Jensen. In his father’s castle there had been both a talking cat and a skeleton. But somehow half a decade of speaking only to humans had made his mind forget the wonders of magical happenings with other species.

“This is not the unicorn’s glad that you seek, valiant hero of the unicorns,” the butterfly informed him.

Jensen nodded. He had presumed as much. His luck had always been middling.

“Do you know, then, where I might find the one that I do seek?” he asked.

“Me? Not I, not I. But a better compass you will never find than the one inside,” the butterfly said, alighting on Jensen’s chest, slowly fluttering its golden wings.

“My people…” Jensen said.

“Do not live in your heart, not as they should. The unicorns know it as surely as they know the woods. They have seen you grow from the shores of your youth. They have seen your heart blossom though your father uncouth.”

Jensen laughed. “Uncouth is a kind term for my father, for what he did.”

“Sometimes one must be kind if one wishes to rhyme,” the butterfly responded.

Jensen laughed and shook his head. “You are not always rhyming.”

“No, ‘tis a fact you speak. My poetry is weak. But a butterfly still I am. I make my matches when I can. But a human’s heart, you’ll no longer carry. If you continue in this vein, be wary. Give him up, or seek him out. Let there be no more doubt.”

“You make it sound simple,” Jensen complained.

“Simple? Only a man who has already made his choice would think such a thing. Now I bid you good day, I must take to my wing.”

Jensen didn’t try to stop it from flying away. For one thing, his hand could easily crush so delicate a creature, and he fancied that he was not a murderer. For another, he would receive no more answers from it. As a champion in Lord Jared’s name, he had solved a few riddles hoping to impress and woo with his wit when his brawn failed to capture the man’s attention. Jensen knew that magical creatures would give no more information once they were done.

He stood in the middle of the forest and watched until the tiny messenger was less than a speck in the sky.

“I know not where to go,” he finally admitted out loud. The butterfly had been right. Jensen had made his choice long ago. Though he had stayed for honor’s sake, his heart had not once been in the task. Felicia and DJ were wise in their council, but wisdom couldn’t overcome the fact that Jensen had no desire to be a king.

“Perhaps I am a coward after all,” he mused out loud as he started to walk back to the horse he had ridden. “What manner of prince and hero cannot care enough for his people to be a good king?”

“You cannot because you were not raised to love a people,” a gentle voice answered him.

For the first time since he was seven-years-old, Jensen’s foot slid out of the stirrup as he tried to mount his horse. Falling on his ass was embarrassing, doubly so when he looked up to see a unicorn standing above him, all clean grace and perfect stillness.

“I… you…” he stammered.

“The unicorn you call Jared,” the unicorn began, “is lonely without you.”

Jensen shook his head in denial.

“It is true. Mayhap it is because we were locked away in the water for so long, but the world has forgotten much of us, our ways, our feelings. We are immortal, this is true. Our feelings grow not as human’s do, but we have them all the same. Though he fell in love with you in the human way, his heart does not forget you.”

“Jared left for a reason, a good reason. He doesn’t…”

“He is very young, for a unicorn. Without the presence of others, he forgot some of our ways and our teachings.”

“His mother?” Jensen asked.

“You think we spring from the earth whole? No, young one, our children are born. Though it may take centuries, we still choose, on occasion, to bring new life of our own into being.”

“But for there to be a mother, would you need a father? Unicorns are solitary.”

An indelicate snort came out of the regal creature’s nostrils. “Lies that our captivity produced. We share our glens, young king. How could we best guard the beasts of a field if we understood only half of them?”

The words made sense, yet, “My father was human. Surely one man’s lifetime was not long enough to erase memory and alter legend.”

“King Julian’s reign was long, far longer than most remember. Such magic as he held captive can warp the flow even of time. The parts of his kingdom that were not thus altered have had their memories toyed with. Your father was far older than even you knew.”

“Be that as it may, I am no unicorn who could join him,” Jensen pointed out. “I love whom I love. I cannot change that, but… I am no fool. One day, I will grow old and die. Even now I am older than I was when last we saw each other, and Jared will be forever young.”

“It needn’t be so.”

“But…”

“Find him,” the unicorn ordered. “You will see that all is not as hopeless as you believe.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There would be many who would think Jensen mad – himself amongst them. It was true that he worried about his country, but the worry was more guilt than anything. Despite what his people thought, Jensen had always known that he was not meant to be their king. His father before him had not been one, nor had he raised Jensen to become one.

A hero, Jensen had been. But the reason for that heroism had not been any innate desire to become a great man. It had merely existed because he desired the affection of a being that he perceived to be a great man, or at least a very comely one.

His only regret in not returning to his homeland was that his people would be left without a leader. Then again, they had survived without one when his father had been upon the throne, and they had easily accepted him in his father’s stead. He doubted that his five years of kingship had improved them so much as they had improved themselves under his name.

His guilt was strong for misleading them, but the truth was that he would never be happy leading them. Come the end of his life, he would have had no heir to give them. His departure only hastened the inevitable and made clear his path.

Jensen was glad for the feeling as his other path, the one that would physically lead him to Jared, was long and winding. DJ had never spoken of the specific trails he and the unicorn had traveled to get to King Julian’s kingdom, but Mommy Fortuna’s circus was famous enough even though she had long since died.

Having no other leads, Jensen went to all of the towns where she was rumored to have stopped and visited, hoping that once he discovered the right place his heart would tell him so. The venture was easy enough. His horse was young, and his coin purse was overly heavy when all he had to care for was his stomach.

His travels took months. At first he thought that he might grow tired and discouraged, but he did not. His heart was lighter than it had been when he was surrounded by the gaiety and songs of his court. His love, once smothered tightly under his mantle of duty, burned fiercely in his chest. Sometimes it felt so hot within him that he thought he might burn up from it, and he cared not. If he was to one day die, as his humanity dictated he would, he would welcome dying of such a thing.

Then came the day that his heart told him to go no further down the road that he had been travelling. It was an unremarkable sort of morning. Neither warm nor brisk, the air was tepid and moist as if it could not decide if it should be a good day or bad. It was not the sort of day that miracles were born on, but it held itself aloft anyway.

Jensen found himself guiding his horse away from the path that it had been on to a road far less traveled. As the dirt stretched before him, the way narrowed and became dotted with grass and the errant wildflower. It was a hunter’s path, though not one often traveled from the looks of it.

There were a myriad of reasons that hunters might stop frequenting an area. Jensen knew this well, but he could not deceive himself about the reason that this path was not worn smooth with hoof beats. It was all he could do to not urge his steed into a gallop, but he restrained himself. It would not do to injure the animal just to earn himself a few more moments in Jared’s company. That would not be noble.

At last he slipped past the edges of Jared’s domain. The difference was easily noticeable to the human eye. The sun was both brighter and softer, the grasses greener, the flowers more abundant. He had no proof that it was Jared’s forest save for the fact that his heart told him so, and that was enough for him.

He knew not how vast the area was, nor how often Jared might traverse over it, so he rode for a while until he found a comfortable resting spot. Jensen unpacked his travel bags and removed his horse’s saddle. He hesitated a moment before removing the bridle as well, leaving the creature free to roam as it wished. Jensen had no intention of leaving the forest again. Why should he tie the beast to him?

But the horse only nickered at him before wandering away to nibble on some grass. He supposed that was a sign that he had been a fair master to it, though it might merely be that the steed was used to human company.

“Jensen,” Jared’s voice was not calm inside of Jensen’s skull. Though the unicorn was standing perfectly still, his voice quivered with excitement and… yearning.

“Hello,” was all that Jensen could say in response. He remembered what Jared looked like. His memory had not faltered in that even though his exposure to Jared’s true form had been limited. Gazing at him now, Jensen was reminded of how ridiculous it was that men thought unicorns looked like horses.

Jared’s hooves were pristine and cloven, his tail long and agile, more like that of a white lion’s than any equine creature. His legs were thinner, his body svelte. It had been true of the unicorn that had urged Jensen to follow after his love as well, but what care had Jensen for that unicorn’s appearance?

“I have sorely missed you,” Jensen confessed, stepping forward to touch the arch of Jared’s long, white neck. He cared not if it was appropriate. If Jared objected, he would let Jensen know. But the unicorn did not shy away from his touch, and the mane under Jensen’s fingers was as soft as he remembered Jared’s chestnut locks to have been.

Jared’s eyes fluttered closed, and he stepped closer to press his muzzle against the side of Jensen’s face. “You should not be here,” he said, melancholy filling his words.

“Here is exactly where I should be,” Jensen countered. “I would not have come otherwise. I cannot stand to be parted from you. So if here is where you must be, then here is where I must be also.”

“I am not human, not any longer,” Jared said as he stepped back. “My heart still aches with regret like it was, but… I am a unicorn. You are human. Magic cannot change that. It cannot make us what we are not.”

“I beg to differ. Magic changed you for a time, and your heart still holds to that, does it not? You say that magic cannot make us what we are not, and it cannot. But our love already is. My need to be with you has burned within me from the moment I saw you. Only you have ever made my heart sing.”

“I do love you,” Jared confessed. “Even now, I cannot help but be happy that you are beside me. But…”

“Hush,” Jensen ordered. “I am here, and here I shall stay. I care not for your form, but for you.”

“I am different than how I was,” Jared pointed out.

“As am I,” Jensen said. “As I will be after I have been here for a time. What will not change is that I love you, and wish to be with you. If we are forever separated by our forms, so be it. But if we are not, if someday magic stirs again, know that I will be not frightened by any change to either of our bodies. My heart belongs to yours, and that it all that I care about.”

“With such a declaration,” Jared observed, “how am I to refuse you?”

Jensen smiled and wrapped his arms around Jared’s long neck, pressing a kiss against its graceful arc. “That is exactly what I wished to hear.”


End file.
